I made my agent cry!

In a good way.

I submitted a 40-page proposal for a novel about the early years of Marie Antoinette titled BECOMING. And she loved it so much she cried.

As I researched Marie Antoinette for my second nonfiction title NOTORIOUS ROYAL MARRIAGES, it made me hungry to learn more about her. And the more I read, the more I revised my opinion of her.

The Marie Antoinette I came to love and pity after reading a dozen biographies of her presents such delicious contradictions in terms that she is a novelist’s dream.

Possessed of a proud temperament, she was nonetheless desperate to please, and in doing so was often too eager to place her trust in the hands of those who were not in fact her confidantes, but who wished her harm instead. She would brook no contradiction, yet was vulnerable to criticism; a frivolous creature who was also the most generous member of the French royal family when it came to helping the poor. She was stubborn and willful, yet playful and adorably charming; regal, yet empathetic; loyal, yet confounded by the dual roles she was often expected to play. She was a natural beauty who according to her own mother was in dire need of painful physical improvements in order to enhance her looks; born to rule, yet shockingly unprepared to do so when the time came to fulfill her ultimate destiny.

Do you know a lot about Marie Antoinette? A little? What's your opinion of her?